Frienemies

A "frienemy" is he who pretends to be your friend, but is really not. It's a slang compound of "friend" and "enemy". I think some people tend to think of me as such. 

Some years ago, I made great efforts to see that two of my friends would not be together. Why? I had a number of reasons, but I sincerely thought what I was doing was in the best interest of everyone, even if I was a bit out of line in doing so. As time passed, one party got upset, and so stopped talking to me. Her and I are not friends, so the issue of "frienemy" does not apply with her. However, with my other friend, call him Uriah, we remained friends for years afterwards. Because I'm not a coward, I hid nothing and pretended nothing. I made it clear and declared it often and in public that I was opposed to their relationship. He would often try to inquire about my position, to no avail. I knew that this would incur certain feelings about me from him. It certainly did with the other party, so I saw no reason as to why it wouldn't happen with Uriah. 

It led to a somewhat uneasy friendship at times. Yes, he was my best friend, but we had an  unspoken understanding that we didn't talk about that area of our triangle. So, some might wonder, how could he possibly consider me his friend? Does a friend give you such great opposition? When two kings oppose each other in war, do they consider themselves friends? When a someone sabotages your race car so that you do not finish your race, is he being your friend? Someone who opposes you reaching some goal is not your friend. 

But that's not right. Proverbs 27:6 says that a wounds from a friend can be trusted, but a friend multiplies kisses. This was partially the reason I made my opposition no secret. I didn't want to be duplicitous and say to his face that I support this effort of theirs while in secret opposing them. I thought maybe Uriah would have the wisdom to see that and so keep me by his side as a friend, as uncomfortable as I made it at times. While I opposed this goal of theirs, I still wished the good for them both. I just perceived this as not a good. When a friend tells you he is going to go buy heroin, you must, as a friend, stop him, or at least try to. This is why Gryffindor won house cup Harry's first year at Hogwarts. So, all enemies oppose you, but not all who oppose you are your enemies. Those who oppose you may be trying to be a better friend to you, even if mistaken by the facts but right in principle. 

It was unfortunate for me to discover that my friend had made vague references to me as the Devil that prevented them two from getting together. Oh well. We're not friends any longer, for unrelated reasons.